September 25, 2011

The third book in the Scott Westerfeld Leviathan trilogy, Goliath came out this week. Lots of new stuff in this one, and some weird new things appear (which will also be further detailed in the still upcoming full colour Manual of Aeronautics book.)

August 30, 2011

Here's a little look at the book cover featuring my mural artwork from Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

Guillermo Del Toro had it done as a completely separate accompanying story to the movie. Written by Christopher Golden, it contains some of my Blackwood drawings from the film and is fully illustrated by Troy Nixey. The book's got a really nice texture and feel, and I'm really thrilled by how the cover ended up. Both the book and the movie are out.

July 10, 2011

This trailer has some nice shots of the creatures, and also some shots of my actual artwork itself (a mural and some period illustrations.) It should be coming out late August, and I'll post more details about it soon.

July 04, 2011

Radio as a whole is really before my time, but I kept coming across references to this specific horror radio play episode from 1948. The whole thing is a self contained short story and only about 22 minutes long (split in two parts below). I would really recommend listening to it alone in pitch dark.

May 08, 2011

Black and white art requires the viewer sink into the imagery so that they can explore it fully. Many of my dreams lack colour. It sounds like it's a relatively rare effect for someone who didn't grow up with black and white television. Much of it probably comes from the huge amounts of black and white illustration I collected since I was very young. From Gustave Doré's illustrated books to the Fighting Fantasy series.

However, some of the most immersive black and white experiences I had when I was very young were the games for the family's Mac Classic and Mac SE. Particularly Shadowgate and Uninvited.

The central window was the view into the world, and an inventory to the side contained drag and drop illustrated objects you collected along your way. Stark and infrequent sounds would pierce your explorations, often coinciding with a sudden new central illustrations of your grisly fate. Every death was then capped with a vision of a reaper.

The artist Uno Moralez is a master of the immersion and thick atmosphere that can be achieved with this type of pixelated black and white art.

April 04, 2011

During the past half year I've been designing on Guillermo Del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness.

Now that the film is sadly on hold, my schedule will allow me to start up a blog. Here I can cover what I'm up to and show things I've created or have been inspired by.

The huge amount of development completed for Mountains was full of things that defied description. Dennis Muren (Industrial Light and Magic) had said "Do you realize nobody has ever seen monsters like this, ever?" With James Cameron producing it was guaranteed the vistas would have been horrifically mind bending in 3D.

It was creatively euphoric working in the amazing team of artists that Guillermo put together:

And then there's the guy at the helm, with the vision of the whole thing, Guillermo Del Toro. It's always a thrill to work on any of his projects.

All of the artists' works featured here are, of course, not from the film's production. Those cyclopean stacks of unutterable visions will remain hidden away from human eyes, waiting a little longer to be unleashed into our fragile reality.